The pace of hiring activity slowed down, albeit marginally, for the first time in December after steadily growing for the previous six months, even as there was a 13% growth year-on-year in online recruitment activities, the Monster Employment Index showed Of the 27 sectors monitored by the index, there was a slowdown in 15 of them in December over November, status quo prevailed in two sectors garments and oil & gas, while 10 sectors registered growth in e-employment. Overall, there had been a 2% decline in online recruitment activities month-on-month. Slowdown was seen in areas like IT, cement & steel, healthcare, travel & tourism and agro-based industries, among others. Growth was seen in sectors like home appliances, banking/financial services, telecom, education and logistics sectors month-on-month. The automotive/ancillaries/tyres sector recorded the steepest growth.
However, growth in e-employment was seen in 20 of the 27 monitored sectors in December compared with the same month last year. Leading the pack was the home appliances sector that clocked 68% growth from the year-ago period. This was followed by the banking/financial services, insurance sector where the growth was 38% and the automotive/ancillaries/tyres sector at 35%.
The sharpest fall was in agro-based industries (15%) followed by printing/packaging (12%) and office equipment/automation sectors at 7%. “India’s hiring outlook in 2017 was dampened due to introduction of radical reforms such as demonetisation, implementation of GST and a new bankruptcy regime. Our estimate is that these reforms would help Indian economy in mid to long term with creation of more jobs,” said Sanjay Modi, managing director, Monster.com, APAC & Middle-East.
However, he was optimistic that the Union Budget for 2018-19 would have a higher focus on job creation in key labour-intensive industry sectors like manufacturing, which would improve the job scenario in 2018.